


Being too Responsible (the story of Shiro)

by Holle_wood



Series: Paladin Pile [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 23:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holle_wood/pseuds/Holle_wood
Summary: In which Shiro forgets that everyone needs help sometimes.





	Being too Responsible (the story of Shiro)

**Author's Note:**

> *Shows up to the party a year late, and with a bag of trash fished from the depths of my computer apparently*
> 
> First of all, it's unedited. Secondly it follows on from part one (might not make much sense without it) and seems to exist in some nebulous time period between season 1 and season 2 that I never define or explain. Also I thought I should probably indicate that Coran is a character who exists in this one. So enjoy, I guess.

It’s not that Shiro doesn’t love his team – because _god_ he does, more than he thinks is healthy (not a lot about Shiro nowadays is healthy). It’s just that sometimes he thinks maybe he shouldn’t.

They’re brave, loyal, smart, compassionate and pretty much the best thing he’s had in his life since before the Galra ripped everything he was out of his chest and shoved it back in upside down. But they’re also young ( _so young_ ).

And Shiro? Well most of the time Shiro feels three days shy of ancient.

It seemed today was doomed to be one of the days he felt like he was preying on his teammates rather than dating them.

They were dressed for the (alien) beach, a day trip serving as their reluctantly Allura-sanctioned reward for clearing another system of its Galra outpost. And by that Shiro meant Hunk, Lance and Keith decked in board shorts and Pidge in a full body wetsuit accessorised by an inflatable duck ring and huge shades- that screamed ‘I don’t give a fuck’, according to Lance. Shiro himself had opted for full length pants and his usual shirt, smiling apologetically at a dismayed pack of paladins when they realised he wasn’t dressed to swim (there was only so much of him he thought his team really needed to see for the moment).

He sets up a towel and the umbrella Pidge had brought while the others run for the water. He turns and sits in time to see yet another episode of the Keith-and-Lance show.

“What the hell, that’s cold!”

Keith, flushed from his chest to his ears and clenched fists hanging by his side, stands on the sand with the waves lapping over his ankles. Water drips down one side of his face. Lance grins at him from the ocean nearby, hand lurking suspiciously under the surface as though about to flick another wave at him.

“We’re here to swim, aren’t we?” Lance offers, shit-eating grin widening across his face as he tempted Keith forward with nothing more than the powerful urge to drown his smugness in salt water. Keith growls wordlessly. Pretty much everything about Lance got Keith hissing, so when he actually _tried_ to get a rise out of him it wasn’t exactly a challenge. Shiro sighs, unable to tell whether this was a situation that required intervention.

“C’mon Keith,” Hunk chimes in, ever the middle man. “It’s only cold at first. Look, even Pidge is in!”

Pidge (living up to her current aesthetic) floats past the boys serenely in her duck ring, gazing straight up at the sky and paying them all no mind. Shiro has to appreciate the peaceful moment they all took to pause and watch her go. Then of course Lance had to continue being himself and swims after her with a smirk slowly curling across his mouth. Hunk follows shortly, a similar sort of grin on his own face and Shiro watches with what he could only classify as an unholy mix of fascination and horror.

“Man overboard!” Lance hollers, combining forces with Hunk to completely flip Pidge’s ring over. Employing best friend telepathy the boys then make a mutual decision to book it before Pidge finished spluttering her way onto the warpath.

“Oh my god oh my god,” Hunk panics beneath spurts of laughter, swimming desperately away into deeper water.

“You were looking overheated,” Lance insists between giggles, paddling briskly in the opposite direction towards the shore (perhaps a wiser decision-making process than Hunk, who was not a particularly fast swimmer and would most likely be the first caught by the enraged figure hurtling after them).

“Fuckers!” Pidge hisses, gaining on Hunk at an alarming rate considering her size.

“Language,” Shiro warns, fighting a smile.

“Idiots,” Keith mutters, lowering himself onto the sand at the edge of the water.

Hunk squeals as Pidge gets close enough to pounce on his back. She promptly gains fistfuls of his hair and uses it to dunk his face in the water with a war cry.

“Lance!” Hunk gurgles in between dunks, wriggling to throw Pidge off his back and failing miserably. Pidge cackles triumphantly, eyes glittering with malice. Lance turns back immediately, a look of great sorrow plastered across his face.

“Hunk,” He entreats his drowning friend. “My buddy. My friend.” He pauses. “You will be missed.” He scrambles onto the beach away from the sea monster that had once been Pidge. Hunk wails through a mouthful of water and Keith apparently can’t hold back his laugh, no matter the look of betrayal Hunk throws at him.

“You know two against one doesn’t seem fair,” Keith comments, climbing slowly to his feet. Lance eyes him warily, completely disregarding the plight of Hunk, who, while now above the water and permitted to breath, is being forcefully ridden around the shallows like an abused draft horse.

“What do you mean? That’s one on one right there. I’ve escaped, I’m out. Nothing to do with me.” Keith watches a bead of water roll down Lance’s face as he babbles and Shiro knows exactly where this is going. He’s proven right a second later when Keith strikes with a leg at the back of Lance’s knee. Lance yelps and promptly chokes when Keith gets an arm around his throat and hauls them both into the waves, flattening Lance under with his own body.

“Hunk!” Lance burbles.

“Lance!” Hunk cries.

“Silence!” Pidge shrieks.

“Heh,” Keith says.

Shiro watches the mayhem unfold from the bank, arms held stiffly at his sides and mind whirring.

They are young, they are wild. Their skin was bared to the sun defiantly and they mock-fight with each other so easily because they are certain there is no real danger. It’s innocent. It’s trusting.

 _Oh my god,_ Shiro thought, stuck by the notion. _They’re children._

Some days it’s fine. Shiro laughs and jokes and feels the real sum of his years; he is young and strong and comfortable in his own skin. Today Shiro feels the divide, the stretch between him and the young pilots wrestling in the water like they’ve never seen a day of combat (Shiro knows it’s not true, knows they can rise to meet him in all the ways that matter, he _knows_ ). Today Shiro refrains from joining in because he has one arm that doesn’t belong to him and a brain that struggles to tell friend from foe the moment his adrenaline goes up.

They’re children, and he’s a grown man (so worn, so damaged by comparison) and he really should not being doing this.

“Shiro?”

He is pulled from his own mind violently by the hesitant voice, to meet four concerned pairs of eyes and an uncertain Keith half reaching out to him. Lance is barely a step behind and both circle his personal space like they know how much he needs it. Hunk and Pidge are quiet in the water. Shiro blinks, surprised by the strength of their concern. Then he follows Hunk’s line of site to where his prosthetic (Galra) hand is lighting up at his side and clenched into a fist.

“Alright?” Keith asks quietly, the others silently mirroring the question. Shiro abruptly pushes every brooding thought that had distracted him to the side. He wills his body to settle until the light fades from his arm (this is why he can’t let down his guard, he _can’t_ ).

“I’m fine,” He says, flashing a smile. “Just lost in thought.”

Keith turns slightly to exchange a look Shiro can’t read with the others, but before more reassurances had a chance to spill from his lips, Lance grins.

“Lost in thought, he says,” Lance drawls.

“Can’t have that,” Pidge muses.

“We’re at the beach!” Hunk insists.

“It’s a mini vacation,” Pidge sighs.

“You shouldn’t waste it,” Hunk chastises.

“On three!” Lance declares.

“Shiro?” Keith asks again, a smile tugging at his lips as the others began a countdown behind him. Shiro feels a bit like he’s been caught flat-footed and off-balance.

“Uh?”

And suddenly Shiro is swarmed by three obnoxiously enthusiastic paladins forcing him into the surf to the back drop of Keith laughing. Shiro hits the water with a swiftness that was impressive, and proves that the others actually listen when he talks during training. As he came up spluttering slightly to a chorus of laughter, Shiro feels something untwist slightly.

He is still hyper-aware of where Pidge hangs off his human arm and Lance off his back, Hunk to the right (too close to his other arm), still hyper-aware of the difference between teenagers and adults. But it seems to matter just a little bit less now than it had in the confines of his own head. 

.

“Shield!”

Shiro feels Lance and Hunk pivot to steady Voltron as Pidge and Keith leapt seamlessly into action. The alien beam attack that slammed into them seconds later drove Voltron back, leaving deep furrows in the planet surface. Shiro grits his teeth and wills Voltron to hold firm.

“Steady,” he calls. The tacit agreement of the others echoes back through the bond.

Several, long, over-heated seconds later the beam eases, and cuts off, giving Shiro a clear line of site to their target. It isn’t the most original weapon the Galra have ever sent against them; distinctly insect like in shape and movement but equipped with a familiar purple charge beam. The markings decorating the robot’s hull light up with a deep purple. Voltron is in motion before he’s said a word, the others reading through his thoughts without him having to speak and following his conclusion.

“We need to pin it down before it finishes charging. Keith?”

“On it,” Keith answers, deploying Red’s sword.

“We’ve got to find some way to keep it coming at us straight,” Pidge points. “It was moving too fast to catch before, and we can’t change direction quick enough to keep up.”

“Yeah it kind of . . . scuttles,” Lance says helpfully, observing the robot coming up on them.

“Like a giant evil alien cockroach,” Hunk adds. They all hear him give a shudder. “I really hate bugs.” Shiro ignores them, addressing the coms.

“Allura, can you corral it? Stop it moving as much?”

“The castle’s weapons systems are ready to fire, but you’ll need to bring it within range,” she answers, Coran in the background calling out figures to her.

“That seems easy enough,” Keith says, swinging the sword in a wide arc at the robot. It dodges sideways, flanking them like Shiro expects. Lance pivots Voltron around so Keith can take another swing. The machine ducks backwards this time. Shiro frowns. Its markings were shining brighter now; it would be ready to fire again soon.

“Push it back towards the castle.”

Keith obeys even as he says it, cutting an arc in front of them again. The robot moves to the side lightening quick and is promptly blown into the dirt by the castle. It leaps up with an enraged screech that sounded suspiciously alive, darting back to avoid a follow up blow from Keith. They push it back further until it’s stuck between Voltron and the castle, unable to sneak up on their side without getting hit by Allura.

“Shield,” Shiro barks. Voltron dances back and Pidge swings the shield up to block the robot’s attempt to catch their sword with its weird lashing tail. They all grunt under the impact. The tail whips away and Shiro sees the purple beam fully charged and ready to fire.

The markings flash once just as Shiro calls out, “Now!”

Keith reacts lightning-quick, the others moving in tandem to bring Voltron forward as Keith stabs down viciously. The sword pierces into the ‘head’, cutting through completely and sinking into the ground below. The machine screeches again, thrashing, the markings beginning to die and the beam them would have hit them point blank powering down. It goes still after twenty seconds. A dark sickly ichor leaks out from around the blade.

Keith hauls it out with helped from Pidge, and they start back to the castle while Red retracts the sword.

“Dude,” Lance whines, to vocal but wordless agreement from Hunk. “So gross.”

“A scorpion,” Pidge decides with fastidious distaste. “It looked like a scorpion. That . . . scuttle, was all arachnid.”

“That’s it!” Lance crows excitedly. “It was the tail, right? I thought it reminded me of something but I couldn’t pick it.”

“Urgh, can we just . . . not talk about it?” Hunk is starting to sound a bit sick, and Shiro bet if they could see him right now he’d be turning an unpleasantly familiar shade of green.

“There was a lot of scorpions in the desert,” Keith adds- a little pointlessly, Shiro thought, but to a chorus of agreement from the others regardless. Hunk makes a retching noise, prompting Lance to demand he keep it together. Shiro gives a little push to the bond that got them moving quicker. He does not want to be in Hunk’s mind if the guy loses his stomach. Lance obviously choses to push the boundaries instead.

“What do you think of giant scorpions who scuttle, Shiro?” He asks, far too cheerful to be innocent, even if Pidge and Keith weren’t snickering in the background.

“Not my favourite fight so far,” Shiro concedes with a small laugh. He says nothing more while they keep picking at Hunk, alternating between spider stories and laughter.  

Shiro is still keyed up from the fight, still in battle mode. It’s like everything became sharper when his adrenaline went up. A switch flicks and he’s in survival mode, all hair-trigger reactions and elevated heart rate. His mind urges him to find the enemy, plot escape routes, fight; even when the enemy was already gone it persisted. Made it hard for him to focus on what was actually happening, or join in the conversation between the others.

Instead he listens.

Hearing the others laugh and joke is taking that razor edge off his thoughts. It is draining the tension unassumingly, soothing his nerves in a way that usually took hours.

They were grounding him.

By the time they leave their lions and meet on the bridge, he is calm enough to laugh properly at the ribbing Lance was giving Hulk- who’d held onto his stomach if, only just barely. 

“Good job Paladins,” Allura says, turning to meet them. “We’ve established contact with the Artaks again, no one from their nearest city was hurt when the robot landed.”

“They wish to thank you for your help!” chimes in Coran excitedly. The man loves parties almost as much as-

“Aw yeah,” Lance grins. “Ce-le-brate good times COME ON!” He digs an elbow into Keith’s side, nudging the other boy into reluctant a smile and slinging an arm around Hunk.

“Do you think they’ll do food?” Hunk’s complexion is clearing up as the thought of celebratory feasts pushes out the thought of giant insect robots.

“Sure thing, buddy. Now let’s get going so I can bust out some wicked moves on that alien dance floor,” Lance urges.

“How do you know they’ll have a dance floor?” Keith asks bemusedly, being pulled off towards the hall by Lance.

“Well I hope so; what else am I going to wipe with Lance’s face?” Pidge inquires academically. She follows after, falling in with Hunk. The ensuing trash-talk fades out as they disappear down the hall. Coran waves, and follows, whistling jauntily as he disappeared out of sight. Shiro watches them go fondly, a small smile on his face. He turns to find Allura gazing at him neutrally.

“You worked together admirably today,” She offers after a moment, sounding thoughtful. Shiro smiles wider.

“Yeah we did, didn’t we?” He muses, remembering the seamless way they’d co-ordinated. It had just come so easy. It shouldn’t be a surprise really, how well they came together nowadays. Especially considering . . . everything.

“They’re doing a much better job of listening,” Allura continues, again in that level tone. Shiro blinks at her, bemused. Allura is not normally so . . . pensive, after an easy victory. “And you’re doing an excellent job of leading them,” She finishes, in a way that suggested she meant a lot more than she was actually saying.

And suddenly Shiro is tense again, remembering that _yes_ he was Voltron’s leader and _yes_ the other paladins were under his command. He isn’t just a member of the team, he is _in charge_. And, as Allura is undoubtedly insinuating, what he was doing was never a good idea where chains of command were concerned.

“I-” He falls silent. Not sure what to say to reassure Allura that he isn’t going to let anything get in the way of their mission- certainly not something that had the potential to be so dangerous to the team.

“Shiro?” Allura sounds mildly concerned now. She searches his face, looking slightly off-put, as she does when looking at something unexpected, something she doesn’t understand. Which confuses Shiro in turn, because what else could she have meant?

“Thanks, they’re a great team,” He manages, with a strained smile. Allura purses her lips, silent for another long moment. Then she sighs, gesturing aimlessly.

“You had better get ready for the party,” She says, sounding mostly normal but with an off-note to her voice he doesn’t recognise. Shiro takes the escape anyway, smiling again and pretending not to see how it made her frown.

.

He honestly doesn’t think of it again until a couple of weeks later, when they’ve left that Alien planet and are on their way to another Galaxy and Coran comes to find him.

Shiro wanders into the kitchen wearily, bones aching from fighting an insatiable Keith (who he was forced to leave behind on the training deck lest he tire enough for Keith to actually win a fight). He makes his way over to the far bench on autopilot, having spied a tray of purple objects that were suspiciously éclair-shaped and probably the work of Hunk.

“Oh Shiro! Just the person I was looking for!”

Shiro quickly stuffs the remaining half an éclair in his mouth and turns to give Coran a puffy, hamster-cheeked smile of greeting. Coran clasps his hands behind his back, standing straight and beaming at him. Shiro chews furiously. The silence that follows while he struggles to swallow the mass in his mouth felt like an eternity anyway.

“What can I help with?” He manages finally. Coran lights up like a switch has been flicked somewhere in his brain.

“Well, funny that you ask that! I’ve got some work cleaning some machinery I could use a hand with, and I thought to myself, you know a guy who could really help you out? Shiro of course!”

“Yeah no problem,” Shiro says, a little bit baffled but smiling nonetheless. “Let’s go?”

“Excellent, follow me young Paladin!”

Of course the immediate question that comes to mind here is why Coran was asking Shiro in lieu of Hunk or Pidge. Heck, even Lance is a more likely candidate, considering how good he was at cleaning- a talent that became less of a surprise the more you get to know Lance. His cleanliness is something he attributes to his mother, a woman who firmly believes that gender was a social construct and not indicative of whether a person should know how to do housework.

Coran leads him through a maze of corridors with a spring in his step, whistling a tune Shiro has heard from him before, but can’t place, meaning it’s Altean in origin and hasn’t come from the archive on Pidge’s iPod. Coran has, in recent months, taken very strongly to Pidge’s Christina Aguilera collection, so Shiro can now quite easily recognise ‘Candyman’ when he hears it.

Coran stops before a very indistinctive door in a corridor fairly distant from the centre of the castle. It had taken a good ten minutes to reach. Shiro glances around as Coran slaps his hand to the access panel, even more baffled now. They were pretty far off the beaten path, what can Coran possibly have to clean down here? He turns back as the door slides open with a quiet hiss.

“Here we are!” Coran declares, throwing his arms wide to gesture at a wide, vat-like machine occupying the far wall. It’s large enough to take up the whole wall, with a large panel set at the bottom with an array of buttons, dials and screens. Coran glances over his shoulder to beam proudly at him. Shiro arches a brow.

“What does it do?” He ventures.

“Glad you asked! It produces an incredibly resilient suspension fluid for the transportation of highly volatile substances,” Coran answers cheerfully, striding over to the buckets already sitting to the side of the door.

“ . . . Do we need to do that?” Shiro asks after a moment’s consideration. Coran shrugs at him.

“Well, no. But maybe we will later, you never know. Besides look at this thing, it’s filthy! It’s the principle.”

Shiro shrugs himself, raising his hands in surrender and smiling.

“Hey no worries, happy to help anytime.”

So he does and they set to it. Shiro is absently expecting Coran to resume whistling at some point and is surprised when the man speaks instead.

“You know, I was quite a wild man in my youth,” Coran says conversationally. Shiro startles, lulled into his thoughts by the repetitive action of scrubbing the machine. They started on opposite sides of the room so Shiro leans around the curve of the machine to look at him.

“Got into more than a few scrapes, I did,” Coran continues. Shiro nods along, this is starting to sound more familiar.

“You got any glory stories?” He asks, since clearly Coran is fishing for some interest. The other man shakes his head, stretching to wipe a smudge a couple of feet above his head.

“Not as many as you’d think. You see, not all those scraps had as happy an ending as I would have liked.” 

His tone is solemn; something so unusual for Coran that Shiro stops cleaning entirely to fix him with a concerned gaze. Coran, however, is entirely focused on the job at hand, cleaning steadily and calmly. Shiro lifts his own cloth back to the surface of the machine, but doesn’t take his eyes off Coran.

“No?” Shiro says, an invitation to continue. Coran hums.

“Well you see,” he starts. “Not every scrape turns out well, and when a scrape turns out badly you end up with all kinds of things that get broken, or lost.”

“... Are you talking about injuries?” Shiro asks, even more confused now. His eyes flick to his Galra arm inadvertently. Coran moves right to the next spot to be cleaned, bringing him closer to Shiro.

“Yes, I suppose they’re part of it. You can hurt your arm, your leg, you can hurt anything really! Even your mind.” The last part is said quietly, seriously.

“Ah.” Shiro says.

“Now I’m not gonna ask you anything, Shiro. I know you’re a private sort. But should you have a desire to talk to someone . . . hm, a little older? Or perhaps just more likely to understand.  I have two ears of excellent quality that would be happy to listen.”

Shiro struggles to swallow when his mouth suddenly feels completely bone dry. Suspecting that he is not as good at hiding his . . . Issues as he thought is a bit different to having definitive proof that someone has noticed. That Coran, of all people, has noticed. Allura too, when he considers in hindsight the indecipherably significant looks she has been giving him recently.

“I-” He says. Coran waits patiently, cleaning away while Shiro collects himself a bit better.

“I’m grateful, Coran, for the offer. Really. It’s just- I’m fine.” He says.

Coran nods agreeably. “Of course, Shiro.” He says. “I just thought I’d let you know that should you have anything to talk about I would be happy to listen. I’ve had similar experiences in the past where I found it helpful to talk to someone, and whilst I may not be a professional, I feel like we might find some common ground.”

The smile Coran gives him is soft, just a little bit twisted around the edges. Shiro is abruptly reminded that this man woke up after 10 000 years to find his planet destroyed and his race all but wiped out. Perhaps Shiro doesn’t have the monopoly on hiding things away.

“But perhaps, if instead you’d rather talk to someone else, the Princess Allura is also an excellent listener.” Coran says into the silence. Because who else would understand the immorality of getting involved with people _in your charge_ better? Shiro starts to clean again, hears Coran doing the same beside him. Finally, he has an answer. Though it’s not great, or even really an answer.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Shiro says quietly, scrubbing furiously at the surface in front of him. “Thank you,” he adds.

Coran just nods his head, starting to whistle.

.

Shiro wakes gasping, eyes wide open and heart pounding like it's trying to tear itself from his chest and fly across the room. The floor is cold against his feet when he rips back the covers and leaps from the bed. There is nothing in his mind but the sick hollow feeling of fear, driven by a panicked voice in the back of his mind screaming _get out get out_. 

He makes it as far as the door before a soft voice calls him back. 

"Shiro?" He turns rapidly, chest heaving, to see Pidge watching him from the bottom of the bed, her wild hair sticking at all angles as she half sits up. Her face is sleepy-soft and open, her lashes falling heavily across her checks with each slow blink. Beside her rests her laptop, still running because of course rather than go to bed Pidge had opted to pass out on top of it.

The sight cuts through his panic enough for him to realize dimly where he is, and that the aliens he's running from haven't followed him out of his nightmares (they are out there, but he's not their prisoner anymore and nowadays the last thing Shiro wants to do is run from a fight).  He remembers Pidge following him after he had his . . . episode at training (it’s just training and Pidge is not Matt but sometimes it feels so hard to separate things). How she silently pulled out her computer and settled on the floor at the end of his bed, leaving him to fall asleep to the sound of her tapping away rapidly at the keyboard.

"I-" he starts. "I'm." Shiro stops. He stares blankly at her while he lets the adrenaline run its course, hyping his system for fight or flight. He holds himself rigidly still, muscles straining and mind grasping wildly for stable ground. He starts to lose the battle, thoughts of past and present slipping and tangling together until he can't distinguish them. Shiro gasps, barely registers Pidge sitting the rest of the way up, sleepiness banished and big eyes locked into his face. 

"Shiro," Pidge says again. "Look at me." 

Calm, certain and brooking no argument. He leans towards that tiny hint of authority, takes the command in her words to heart and wills his body to stop. He anchors himself in her eyes and holds on, weathering the storm of panic that sweeps through him until it starts to fade, to become bearable.  

Shiro drops his gaze from Pidge's. He heaves a shuddering breath, slumps to his knees and grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes fiercely, unable to look at Pidge now that he's looked away. Just enough panic lingers that the sight of her reminds him sickeningly of a friend long-lost. He hears shifting in front of him, the rustle as Pidge climbs slowly out of bed. 

She approaches just as slow, stopping a metre away and waiting. Shiro says nothing. He can't think of anything to say. Pidge is young, Pidge is his charge, his responsibility. Pidge is within her rights to be angry with him for escaping without her family. Pidge shouldn't even have to see him like this, let alone talk him through it. 

Shiro quickly pushes back against an equal measure of guilt and shame, finding it a depressingly familiar task. He ignores everything else (like the ang- no stop), because it’s more important that he pull himself together quick enough to reassure Pidge. 

"It's five thirty," Pidge says suddenly, with a stretch and a yawn. "Allura will be waking the others up soon. Do you want first shower?" 

"Um," Shiro says. 

"Because if you don't I do," Pidge continues as though he hadn't spoken (though Shiro supposes he hadn't, really). She waited as patiently as Pidge has ever been able to manage.

"Sure, I don't mind," he manages after a moment of Pidge forcefully not wriggling and squirming to go. Shiro forces his eyes up to meet a grin that's still too familiar to another Holt he knows, but edged with a sharpness that's all Pidge.

He relaxes into that sharpness as she strides off to shower, beginning a conversation (it’s mostly with herself) as she goes about engineering versus theoretical physics and which one she likes more. It includes opinions previously obtained from their shipmates (Coran and Hunk are biased, Keith and Allura are neutral, and Lance is, as always, an idiot) and anecdotes from her time at the flight academy. Shiro appreciates her voice more in that moment than he knows how to express, and the careful way she avoids mentioning Matt only helps further. 

She leaves the shower after fifteen minutes, walking back into the room dressed in her flight suit. Shiro had moved himself back to the bed, and taken advantage of Pidge's infamous shower time to pull himself back together. He can't be a proper leader if he isn't grounded, and he stood to lose a lot (not least the lives of his team) if he can't be a proper leader. Pidge drops onto the mattress beside him, cutting through his thoughts with a light punch to his arm. He waits for the questions he knew must be coming.

"Shower's all yours," Pidge says casually. "You have about five minutes before Hurricane Allura sweeps the nation so I'd make it quick."

Shiro is so grateful he almost wants to cry (he doesn’t’ even know if he _can_ cry anymore). Of all the paladins to not ask, Pidge was the last one he'd expect (or maybe Keith- both of them lacked the social graces for the kind of awkwardness that usually stilted these kinds of conversations). Shiro follows her lead with relief.

"Who's fault is that?" He mutters with a small grin, getting up to grab his flight armour and head to the shower. Also infamously hot, Pidge's shower had left the mirror completely and mercifully fogged (Shiro doesn't think he could handle seeing certain parts of himself right now). He emerges a scant two minutes later, deciding the stream of icy water had done a bang up job of waking him up, and he doesn’t want to stand in it any longer than he has to. He changes quickly in the bathroom, ignoring the mirror as it cleared.

Pidge is still sitting on the bed when he walked out, fiddling with a navy blue, pyramidal object that Shiro recognised distantly as Altean tech of some kind. She looks up when Shiro clears his throat, turning those dark, unreadable eyes on him instead. He tenses.

“Something wrong?” He asks carefully.

Pidge says nothing for a long moment, her face adopting the same focused determination she uses when solving particularly difficult puzzles of technology, when the problem in question is both tricky and delicate.

“Nothing,” She decides eventually, dropping her gaze back to the pyramid and standing. “Ready to go?”

They arrive at the training deck as the alarm is sounding to call the other paladins. Pidge settles on the floor to wait, and Shiro leans against the wall. They don’t speak again until Allura arrives, dragging the bleary-eyed trio of remaining paladins behind her by the ear. In fact, Pidge says nothing else all through the day’s training, and by the time the alert sounds for Galra activity in their vicinity, and after the ensuing clash with Galra forces, all Shiro has gotten from her are occasional searching looks that he notices, but makes no attempt to decipher (long gone were the days when he thought he could understand Pidge without her help).

By the end of the day, when he is sore and aching, Shiro has decided to put that morning out of his mind. Pidge seems content to drop it. He will drop it.

(He can’t completely ignore the part of him pointing out that Pidge never lets anything go.)

(He’s right.)

.

When Keith shows up at his door the next night, Shiro thinks nothing of it. He’s used to Keith showing up sporadically, and knows by now to make his welcome clear and unconditional. Keith’s always been a bit like a slightly feral cat; unpredictable, wary and liable to bolt at a loud noise, but also a promise of warmth at your side during the night and a pair of claws sunk into the face of anyone who threatens you.

“Hey,” Shiro says with a tired smile. He is tired. The bone-deep kind of tired.

“Hey. Can I stay?” Keith asks. His voice is steady and nothing in his face would indicate what the question cost him if Shiro didn’t already know better. Since Shiro does know better, and treasures the trust he has won from Keith, he leans out of the door way immediately to clear the way.

“Always,” He says, gesturing for Keith to enter – because you could never be obvious enough when it came to telling Keith he was welcome.

Shiro waits a moment to see if Keith will say anything- sometimes he doesn’t. There’s a long enough pause that Shiro turns, continues pulling his shirt over his head and reaching for a tank top to sleep in. He’s aware of how late it is in their ship time-cycle. He should have gone to bed hours ago. It was just- the thought of another night tossing and turning, his entire mind aching with the need to sleep but unable to convince his body to rest, only to finally drop off but jolt awake a few hours later still reeling from his latest nightmare- that he hadn’t got around to it yet.

“Are you going to sleep?”

Shiro nods without looking up from pulling off his socks. He hears a rustle from behind him that says Keith is coming closer. It’s a courtesy Keith is paying him, considering the lack of noise he usually makes when moving anywhere. Shiro still relaxes when he comes into his sight (he hadn’t even known that he’d tensed).

“Was planning on it,” he says in answer to Keith. Keith observes him with uncomfortably knowing eyes, gaze lingering over Shiro’s face.

“Good,” He decides.

 And that’s that. They climb into Shiro’s bed, Shiro putting his back to the wall and Keith putting his back to Shiro.

.

It’s the night after that, when Shiro has just settled down to sleep again, that Lance bursts into his room. Shiro leaps to his feet with a yell and comes nose to nose with an alarmed Lance, who skids to a stop in the centre of the room. He looks about himself for a moment, clearly confused.

“Uh hello?” He says.

Shiro exhales forcefully, a bemused smile creeping onto his face. His hands are wrapped gently around Lance’s upper arms, and they are close enough for Shiro to feel the heat radiating off his body.  His smile widens when Lance notices and starts to blush. Shiro raises an eyebrow and prompts him.

“Yes? What are you doing here?”

“I was looking for Hunk, but I guess I got the wrong room?” Lance says so quick Shiro almost misses it. Hunk’s room is down the hall and around the corner from Shiro’s, so it’s kind of an odd mistake to make, but Shiro just chalks it up to Lance being Lance.

“Yeah, guess so,” He grins good-naturedly. He waits for Lance to turn around and head back out in search of Hunk, only to find Lance giving him a calculating look that means plans are about to be disrupted. He waits for a second, and sure enough-

“Well, now that I’m already here can I do your nails?” Lance asks abruptly, shaking the black bag in his right hand and dislodging Shiro’s grasp. Shiro smiles again, feeling almost ready for this fresh new nonsense (ready for any distraction from sleep, really).

“My nails?” He asks. Lance nods furiously.

“Yeah, I used to have mine painted before I joined the Garrison- you know all those stupid uniform regulations they had. And then the other day I noticed Allura’s nail were painted, so I asked her and hey, turns out Alteans have some pretty sweet nail polish- I guess it’s just universally recognized as awesome- and now that I’ve sampled the colours she gave me-“

Here Lance paused to lift his hands up for inspection. Each fingernail was painted a different, but equally vivid and glittery colour-

“I want to have a go with someone else?”

Shiro blinked, processing. “Uh sure?” He offers. Lance seems to shrink a bit.

“It’s alright if you don’t,” he adds quickly. “Hunk’ll probably let me do his anyway, it’s just... nice? I thought, to get your nails done? But hey, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea obviously-“

“Lance.” Shiro says. Lance freezes. “It’s fine,” he continues. “I’d like you to. I just think my nails might be a bit too...” Shiro casts a wry look at his hand, “... far gone,” he finishes diplomatically. Lance shakes his head, putting the bag that he’s been holding down and opening it to reveal a file and some nail clippers alongside a collection of nail polish bottles.

“Perish the thought Shiro, no nail is ever too far gone,” he says with mock solemnity. Shiro laughs despite himself, settling back on the bed and offering up his human hand in surrender.

“Have at it,” he says. And Lance does.

Lance is right, it is nice, once he stops thinking about it so much. The gentle pressure of Lance trimming and filing his nails, pushing his cuticles down and stroking the brush over the top sends pleasant tingles up his arm. He’s still relaxed enough to not jump when Lance moves to his Galra hand without preamble, taking a much shorter time to just apply paint.

“There you are,” Lance finishes triumphantly.  “Now shake them, and don’t touch anything until they dry.”

Shiro pulls his human hand closer to his face to see what Lance’s done. He’s swirled black and gold glitter onto Shiro’s now perfectly shaped nails. A quick glance confirms that the Galra hand has a similar design painted across its approximation of fingernails. Shiro wonders idly how well the paint would stand up to him activating it. Lance watches him inspect his work, grinning when Shiro looks up at him.

“Razzle dazzle,” he says. Then, “Thanks,” soft and young.

“Hmm?” Shiro says. He’s feeling heavy now, the warm weight of sleep creeping on the edges of his mind in a way that’s shifted from panic-inducing to welcome. Lance reaches out, spacing Shiro’s fingers with his own and kneading his thumbs into Shiro’s palm.

“I used to do this with my younger sister. She was sad, when my older sister moved away for college- they used to do nails together, and she was only ten. I asked if she could teach me and we practiced until Maria came home for the holidays, and then Josie and me- we did her nails together and she did ours and it just became a thing we did. Whenever Mari was away we practiced, whenever she was home we did her nails. A new design every day.”

Lance’s soft rambling, combined with the soothing feeling of his thumbs pressing into Shiro’s skin brought the fog of sleep even closer to swamping Shiro. He drifts a bit, and the next thing he knows is Lance releasing his hands, informing him that the top coat is dry.

“You can sleep now,” Lance says. “They look pretty sweet though, huh?”

Shiro looks down, noting the glossy finish over the top of the black and glitter. He gets lost in the design for a long moment, pulled from his thoughts by an almost palpable wave of anxiety coming from Lance, the longer the silence stretches on.

“Razzle dazzle,” Shiro says, smiling sleepily and wiggling his fingers. Everything seems to soften with Lance’s shoulders, when he settles back into himself. The last thing Shiro hears before he drifts off is Lance’s laugh. The last thing he feels is the fingers that run through his hair.

Shiro sleeps through the whole night, and in the morning finds Lance curled up against his hip, one arm draped across his chest, the fingernails resting over his heart painted a bright blue.

.

There’s a sort of inevitability about it, when Shiro goes for a late night walk to find he’s not the only one still awake. Tee rustling in the kitchen, and humming that accompanied it sounded like-

"Shiro?"

"Hunk." Shiro managed a weak smile, stepping out into the fully lit kitchen. It seemed almost a different world from the hall, despite the lack of distance. Open, warm, bright- a balm from the way the hall had felt like it was closing in, trapping him in a darkness so thick he couldn't even breath- no, stop. Breath. Hunk had his apron on over his bright yellow shirt, though his headband was missing, letting his hair flop down over his forehead. It was soft and shiny (probably Lance's influence), and Shiro tried to focus on the way he seemed to fit into this soft, cosy world so well, like maybe the room was soft and cosy to begin with because Hunk was in it.

"Muffin?" Hunk blurted suddenly. Shiro jumped, jolted from his thoughts. He realised he had no idea how long he'd been standing there, silent and staring.

"Huh?"

"I have muffins- I mean, I baked them. Just then. I couldn't sleep and I thought 'hey, I could go for a muffin. But obviously I have to make the muffins first. Because we're in space- there aren't any muffins. So, I made some, y'know, space muffins. You want?" Hunk had one hand behind his head, ruffling it in that way he did when something was making him nervous. His other hand gestured towards the oven, presumably indicating the muffins in question. Shiro blinked, mind still moving a bit slower than normal (caught up in things he'd rather not remember). He was still staring blankly when Hunk held up both hands in front of his face abruptly. 

"They're good space muffins, I promise. Lance said they're almost exactly like earth muffins now, and he's been testing them the whole way through," he insisted. Shiro hesitated a moment more, fighting his sluggish mind.

"You can ask Pidge too," Hunk added. "She said they passed as well. Which I guess would be a better compliment, because she lives on junk food, and Lance is kind of... finicky? I don't know, at the garrison he used to blend stuff like celery and cucumber in coconut water for breakfast- but then he always wanted one of my pastries as well. Actually, does that mean his opinion is better- because Pidge isn't picky?"

Shiro laughs, the sound pulled from him in a rush. It's startlingly loud and feels almost inappropriate but he can't help it. The room seems even brighter now, with his breathing finally calmed and the easy, familiar rambling and the comforting, homely feeling Hunk gives off make it simply impossible to brood.

"Well if they've got the Lance-and-Pidge seal of approval I guess I have to try one," he says, grinning. Hunk gives him a strange look, so quick Shiro only just catches it- there and gone in a second- but can't work out what it means anyway, before his face breaks into that great beaming smile he has whenever he's serving food to people.

"One freshly baked space muffin, coming right up!" He says, opening the oven to check on the baked goods in question.

A scant minute later Shiro sinks his teeth into something bright purple and muffin shaped. He knows how good Hunk is in the kitchen but somehow the explosion of flavour on his tongue still comes as a surprise. Shiro moans in delight, taking another two bites of fluffy goodness.

“Good?” Hunk asks. His grin is a strange mix between smug, delight and a hint of a blush crawling across his cheeks.

“Is this cinnamon?” Shiro asks. “How?”

Hunk grabs three muffins of his own and slumps into the seat next to Shiro. He’s close enough that Shiro feels him shrug.

“A whole lotta mad culinary experimentation and Lance putting weird things in his mouth,” Hunk says through a bite of muffin.

He pushes one of the others he grabbed into Shiro hands just as he finishes his first. Promptly shoving it in his mouth, Shiro manages a garbled approximation of a thank you. It comes out fervently heartfelt nonetheless. Muffin had replaced the dread that had choked him since he woke, lodged in his chest and left him restless and on edge.

Hunk smiles, somehow softer than his grins, and as warm as his shoulder pressed against Shiro’s.

“No problem,” he says. “It’s what I’m here for.”

.

It takes another two late night training sessions with Keith, the fact that Lance has progressed to facials and pedicures and Pidge camping herself on his floor so that he falls asleep to the glow of her laptop screen and the ‘tap-tap’ of her furious typing before Shiro abruptly realises he hasn’t spent more than an hour alone since . . . since he didn’t even know when.

He’s sitting at dinner when the epiphany hits, and baffled, Shiro excuses himself to think. It occurs to him that if he hasn’t been followed by anyone since he left dinner there’s probably some other plan in place about half-way through his walk around the castle. Sure enough, when Shiro opens his door upon making his way back from the outer halls he finds not one, not two, not even three, but four paladins lounging on and around his bed.

“Uh hello?” He asks tentatively. Lance’s head shoots up and he grins white and bright.

“About time you got here, we’ve been waiting ages!” He declares.

“Since dinner?” Shiro says. “This is my room.”

“Yes, it is,” Pidge agreed, eyes huge behind her glasses. Soulless, Shiro thought nervously.

“We’re having a sleepover.” That was Keith, surprisingly. Shiro hadn’t known that Keith knew what a sleepover was.

“Come sit down,” Hunk urged, patting the bed beside him, an inviting smile on his face. 

Shiro looks at the four of them, bunched together on his bed. Thinks of how, every time the panic sneaks up on him someone is there. Hunk with muffins or cocoa, Lance with a demand for attention, Pidge with snarky remarks and a small body that fit easily in his arms. Keith, showing up at his door time and time again, putting himself on the line over and over to make sure Shiro knows he’s there if he needs him. Even Allura and Coran, so wise and understanding.

Thinks of how they help pull him from the past and back into the now every time he feels like he’s drowning in memories. He’s spent so long trying to hide it, how did he miss them always seeming to know? Shiro thinks, but can’t remember when it started, that there as always someone at his side when he started to sink. Or maybe he could.

“What’s going on?” He asks Pidge softly.

"I asked them to help me help you," She shrugs. "Because you weren't going to ask for it, but you needed us and we wanted to."

"We're here, y'know," Hunk says quietly. "Whenever you need us."

"You may be the head of Voltron," Lance adds with a smirk (far softer around the edges than normal). "But we hold you up."

"A good leader trusts his team," Keith reminds him fiercely. His gaze so intense Shiro feels a chill down his spine, hearing his own words repeated back to him.

He drops his eyes to his lap because even if he can't separate the jumble of emotions inside him into actual distinct feelings it still feels pretty overwhelming to be so honoured and humbled by people so much younger than him. They are full of love, loyalty, compassion and Shiro-

Shiro loves his team.

"Okay," he says hoarsely. And that's it. Pact made. No more hiding the worst parts of himself. No more shying away, or waking up alone. He'll trust them; he'll trust Allura and Coran.

It's terrifying- a bone deep fear that threatens to shatter him- but also. It feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. Something dark and heavy that he'd been carrying around so long he didn't notice it until it’s gone. Lifted and held by his team- and Shiro doesn't know whether to laugh or cry for taking this kind of risk, but unable to regret it regardless.

He reaches forward without thinking. Keith is closest, and he pulls him forward with one on his shoulder and the other on his cheek. Keith kisses back ferociously, with his usual intensity, fingers probably leaving bruises where they curl around Shiro's forearm. He vaguely registers leaning away once Keith's breath is decidedly shorter and reaching out again, this time cradling Pidge's face in his hands and pressing a kiss to her mouth, more chaste but no less fierce. Once she's slumped into him, relaxed, Shiro turns his head to find Lance already there, mouth already reddened from where Hunk had pulled his lower lip between his teeth but Lance no less eager for it.

Hunk is last, leaving Lance to lean down and nuzzle against Pidge, who reaches for him like a flower towards the sun, and Keith to hover over them both, watching them all with dark eyes that burned.

Kissing Hunk was different to kissing Lance, like kissing Lance was different to kissing Pidge, and kissing Pidge was different to kissing Keith. Hunk had always been somewhat... shyer than the others. He was an over thinker, and when Shiro leaned forward and coaxed Hunk's mouth open, running his tongue over Hunk's and sighing into his mouth, he let a small smile curl his lips when he felt Hunk lean into him fully in return.

But as Hunk's soft noises turned to moans, and Lance's breathing became harsher and Keith's tension was almost a physical presence in the room, Shiro started to lean away.

He's said it before- he's pretty damn sure he's in love with his team. But he can't- he doesn't think he can be with them in certain ways, just yet. His reasons are his own, though they don't all make perfect sense (he doesn't trust himself still, they're so young, what if it goes wrong and he loses them-), and the others have never asked. (They only accommodate, in that way they have that says 'we'll be here if you need us, no matter what'.)

So on nights like this, when they're all together, and the boys are ready to graduate from warm kisses to hot kisses to taking off clothes, he moves away. Not far, because he's still (desperate-) eager to watch and to feel the intimacy between them, but still reluctant to touch (maybe one day soon, but not- not yet).

Hunk shifts obligingly downwards to make room when Shiro gently disconnects their mouths and slides himself back against the wall at the head of the bed. Lance strokes one hand down Pidge's back, kissing both her cheeks and then her mouth again before he helps Keith lift her over Hunk to curl back against Shiro's chest. He wraps his arms around her form, thin but soft, and presses a kiss to her hair as she sighs.

Pidge likes to kiss Lance and run her hands through his hair. She likes to cuddle in Hunk's lap, back to chest and both of them wrapped up in whatever project has caught their attention. She likes to rest with Keith after a hard training session both of them slumped against the wall and each other (though Shiro is pretty certain that Keith is gay and they would have ended up that way regardless). And she likes to have Shiro wrapped around her, whether they're sleeping or standing or sitting.

But she doesn't like to get involved when Keith slides Lance's shirt off, and Hunk presses against him from behind, reaching on hand around to help Keith take the other boy apart. That part of it all- Hunk's open mouthed kisses, warm and slow, Keith's biting, passionate and demanding, Lance's  wandering hands, amorous and possessive- that part she doesn't want.

At first Shiro thought it might be because she's too young to want it (and what an uncomfortable thought that was at first)- but now, it's different. He thinks it's just the way Pidge is. She wants love, but she doesn't want sex.

Shiro likes that, the company when he watches the others. When his mouth goes dry and his breath comes a little faster, he likes having Pidge curled against him, trailing his hands over her shoulders in a way that never quite crosses the line of more than sweet. Both of their eyes following eagerly until the boys are finished and they come together as five again.

Shiro doesn't dream that night, with Keith sprawled on his right arm and Pidge on his left, Lance wedged in between his hip and Keith's chest, and Hunk nose to nose with Pidge, their hands clasped. He sleeps right through until morning, lulled by the soft breathing and feeling of being surrounded by people he trusts.

.

“Coran?”

“Yes Shiro?”

“Do you have a minute?”

“Of course, anytime young Paladin! I was just about to clear out some storage- the rooms haven’t been used in a while and you never know what’s in there that could be useful. You can come with me!”

“. . . Thanks.”

.

.

.


End file.
